Friday, October 26, 2012

Multiple Warheads: Alphabet to Infinity #1

by Brandon Graham

It has been years since I read Brandon Graham's Multiple Warheads one-shot from Oni Press, and I never really expected to see its main characters, Sexica and Nikoli, again.  I was very pleased to hear that Graham was returning to this title for what he promises the first of many yearly mini-series.

Multiple Warheads began its life as a porn comic, which explains the main character's name, and why Sexica, the organ smuggler, sewed a wolf's penis to Nikoli, causing him to have 'wolf dreams'.  In the Oni Press issue, which abandoned the porn angle, a spaceship crashed on their neighbourhood, spurring the couple to hit the road.

This series is set in the type of weird future world that has become Graham's stock in trade.  King City, his wonderful comic, is set in a similar world, where familiar things exist alongside weird, wonderful, and pun-based items of amusement.  Our two heroes in this book are driving across the country (world?) to travel to the Impossible City.  We see what their journey is like, as they come across strange beings (Otto Barons are people who are somehow physically attached to their cars), listen to their singing cigarettes, and bemoan the lack of high-quality pastries.

Running parallel to this story, Graham introduces another organ smuggler, Nura.  Her story feels like a bridge between this book and Graham's hugely successful run on Prophet, as this character heads out to track down a Shov Puppet, a person who is able to grow magic organs, and has to kidnap him from a castle perched atop a large walking city.

Graham is one of the most inventive and funny creators working in comics today (I love the Misogyny Parlour - where men declare their hatred of women while getting deep tissue massages by other men with porn star moustaches).  His art is terrific, and also very funny, and the best thing about this comic is that it's a solid 48 pages, with no ads, for $3.99.  This has been a wonderful year for new comics, and Graham has just made it even better!

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